


One Foot in Sea, and One on Shore

by fiendlikequeen



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crossdressing, Dirty Talk, Hand Jobs, Internalized Biphobia, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Pre-Canon, Top!Francis, d/s overtones (but very minor), power bottom jcr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:49:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26341420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiendlikequeen/pseuds/fiendlikequeen
Summary: Francis Crozier has a yearning he sees as fruitless; James Clark Ross sees it differently.Prompt: the New Year's Ball in Antarctica (James Clark Ross in a dress), forhttps://mcclintock.tumblr.com/
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Sir James Clark Ross
Comments: 12
Kudos: 49
Collections: The Two Captains Fest 2020





	One Foot in Sea, and One on Shore

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the Rossier Exchange! My chosen prompt was the New Year's ball (JCR in a dress) - the very best of all possible prompts! My prompter was the wonderful @mcclintock - who, alas, does not have AO3, but can be found on Tumblr: https://mcclintock.tumblr.com/
> 
> A thousand times thank you to the organizers of this delightful Rossier romp!
> 
> My usual apologies for: purple prose, crimes against punctuation, extended (and badly veiled) metaphor, and, of course, smut. Enjoy!

Francis Crozier is a man who yearns and wishes he did not. Since he was a boy he has never truly understood his own desires – his yearnings are a muddled, confused mess of equal parts shame and want. This is true in all things, not merely in how he desires and detests glory in the same measure.

When he was a boy, he thought himself quite ordinary – it was the usual way of things, he had assumed, to pine as ferociously for the buxom chambermaid as for the strong-armed coachman – but age has taught him otherwise. After a few fumbling encounters in his first weeks aboard _Hamadryad_ with a midshipman whose name he no longer remembers, he had convinced himself he was the filthiest of catamite wretches, and burned with shame for it; months later, hiding a ferocious cockstand after a cheap doxy’s solicitations, he had known himself as taken with the fairer sex as his own, and burned with shame for that, too.

Shame has been his strictest schoolmaster in teaching him to hide his desires. He has learned his lessons well – has tried to master his yearnings as shame has mastered him. But it is never _easy._

Never is it less so than when he is in the company of James Clark Ross. When Francis first laid eyes upon James he had wondered, breathlessly, if Adam had felt so upon first beholding Eve. Francis has always wondered at the Almighty’s cruelty in this matter. He has been given his own rib, to honour and adore – but never to have, nor to hold.

No, it is never easy.

*****

James has allowed the men to throw a party for New Year’s. Francis would be gladder of it if he were not expected to attend. But James expects his presence, of course – he has even called him to _Erebus_ right as the festivities are beginning. He has, apparently, something to show Francis first.

Francis knocks at the door of the great cabin and is greeted with a merry trill to enter. What awaits him seems to have been pulled from his wildest fantasy: James Clark Ross, seated at his table, wearing a dress the colour of his eyes.

“Good evening, captain,” says James, inclining his head. His hands are folded in his lap, his ankles crossed. He looks like a painting come alive. In all the world, Francis can think of neither man nor woman to match him. “Do come in.”

Francis ought not to. He ought to flee, to throw himself into the sea; better to drown than to betray the desires he has fought so long to conceal. But James lifts his hand, crooks his fingers, and Francis is drawn as surely to him as a magnet to the pole.

“Well, Frank,” says James, as he rises and smooths down the front of his gown. His waist is cinched to a shocking girth. Surely Francis could get both hands around it. “What do you think?”

Francis’s heartbeat is a wild thing, a stallion’s hoof-beat. Where would it lead him, if he let it? He yearns to get one fist in the mane of his desire, to pull himself up on its back. He would let it, unbridled, bear him wherever it chose.

“Francis?”

In the low light, James’s hair gleams like burnished copper. Francis longs to tangle his fingers in it. What would James do, if Francis dared? Bow his lovely head, and surrender himself to be touched? Or would he toss Francis’s clumsy grip aside, snorting his derision?

(Even for a chance at the former, Francis could not bear the possibility of the latter.)

“Come now,” says James. He cocks his head, only half-playful. “Surely I don’t look so beastly as all that.”

Francis has forgotten that for all his good qualities, James is a man who likes to be flattered. How many portraits are there of him, now? Francis thinks, absently, of James swathed in fur, clutching his spyglass. Oh, that a painter could see him now! He is an artist’s dream of beauty.

“Lovely,” Francis croaks at last.

James brightens at once. “You think so?”

Francis nods, not trusting his voice.

“I must confess,” says James, with a gossipy, conspiring air, “that I had always found women’s fashions frustrating. Too many layers, I thought. An attempt to frustrate us, surely. But there is a certain appeal to it. Any suitor should have to fight through a veritable blizzard of fabric to touch me, which would surely demonstrate his fervor.”

Francis fingers curl toward his palms until he is pressing his fists against his thighs.

When Francis manages no response, James presses again: “Are you quite certain I’m not making a fool of myself with this?”

Francis is the fool here, to stand rigid and perspiring at the sight of James so attired.

“Quite,” he murmurs. His cheeks burn and he can hardly meet James’s searching gaze. (Is there a part of James at which he might look and not blush? Even the sight of James’s fine wrist has him incensed.) “You look well.”

He wishes for better praise, but to venture it would betray his yearning. James seems satisfied all the same.

“Good,” he says. He straightens up and draws closer with a measured step that sets his dress swishing like loose canvas flapping under a gentle breeze. “Then you won’t mind being my escort tonight, will you?”

“As you wish.”

James smiles. “There’s one last thing, Frank,” he says. He and Francis stand toe-to-toe now. He cocks his head again, baring a great expanse of porcelain skin. Francis has to press his fist to the small of his back to prevent himself from placing his hand upon James’s snow-white neck. “Tonight I am Miss Ross, and expect to be so addressed.”

“James-”

“ _Miss_ Ross,” James affirms.

“As you will, madam.” Francis will obey James in anything – even this.

“Good,” says James. “Now give me your arm, Captain Crozier, and we shall go down.”

*****

Thomas Jopson is standing at the entrance to the hollowed-out iceberg that serves as their makeshift ballroom. Francis is not surprised to see that he has taken the role of master of ceremonies. When James beckons him close to whisper in his ear, he listens gravely and then nods.

“Captain Crozier and Miss Ross,” he announces, as he beckons them in.

The men applaud, of course. As Francis leads James through the crowd, there is the usual doffing of caps. Never before has the attention of his men made Francis so disquieted; now, the respectful deference seems like a mockery – surely the moment he and James pass, there will be titters and whispers over Francis’s red cheeks and wide eyes.

James is not the only one who has opted for this costume. There are many swarthy, stout ladies in the crowd – thickset sailors seeming to revel in the feeling of flounces and frills. One trips over his long train, planting face-first into the snow, as laughter erupts all around them. Another flips up the hem of his dress above his waist, his friends whistling and whooping at the sight.

It is a ridiculous display, as it is meant to be. Not so with James – he sweeps across the ice with all the stately grace of a sovereign. Lovely as a queen and regal as a king; as commanding and haughty as both and better in Francis’s estimation than either.

“Come now, captain,” he says as the fiddler is tuning his instrument. “A dance, to begin the evening?”

Francis hopes his hand does not shake as he offers it to James. “If you would so honour me, Miss Ross.”

Then men clap and whistle, but Francis does not hear them, not with James’s hand in his and the midnight sun gleaming in James’s fiery hair. “It would be my pleasure, sir.”

(The word is nearly too much for Francis.)

*****

“I had never thought,” James remarks, from his place in Francis’s arms, “to dance a quadrille upon an iceberg.”

Francis responds with an affirming sort of grunt. He is staring resolutely over James’s left shoulder.

The dance has them part, and then come back together. James goes on: “Nor ever in such climes – with the ice under my feet and a bright night sky.”

Francis manages a low hum this time.

“Nor ever to do it so attired.”

Francis dares a look at James, finds his face pink in the way that only men of his complexion can wear well. Words fail him, and he nods, once, and goes back to staring at the ice wall.

“Nor have I ever danced with such a taciturn partner,” he adds, dropping his chin and giving Francis a meaningful look. It is clearly meant to be a playful sort of rebuke; but with his breast heaving and his eyes so wide, it is near enough flirtation to have Francis blushing and fumbling for a response.

“I have never possessed the ability to talk and dance at the same time,” says Francis, at last. “Should you wish for conversation, know that you will suffer bruised toes as a result.”

At this they nearly collide with another pair – poor young Hooker bearing up very admirably under McCormick’s awkward, crab-like shuffle – and James laughs. “Fair enough.”

The dance seems indeterminably long. When it eventually ends, Francis is unspeakably glad. It is no longer the fashion to bow at the end of a quadrille, Francis knows, but he does it all the same. When he rises, James extends his hand to him and Francis takes it to kiss.

The men laugh and Francis wants to scream. How ridiculous that Captain Crozier should kiss the hand of Captain Ross, their laughter says. How they would jeer to know that Francis trembles to press his lips to James’s knuckles.

When Francis rises, James is smiling. The torchlight glints in his eyes – no longer blue, but almost black. Francis does not imagine the blush painting James’s cheeks, nor how his chest heaves.

“You _ladies,_ ” James pronounces to the crowd, after a moment, his feigned hauteur earning him more riotous cackling from his men, “are merely jealous of how gallant _my_ gentleman is.”

“Indeed,” says Hooker, who is nursing one foot. McCormick shoots him an apologetic grimace.

“Come, now, sir – shall we take a turn about the room?”

“Of course, capt-” Francis breaks off under James’s warning glare. “Miss Ross.”

James is smiling like an angel when he takes Francis’s arms and suffers himself to be led away from where another dance is about to begin.

*****

Until tonight, Francis has never before wished to be anywhere but in James’s company and good graces. He remembers, with no small degree of pain, the years spent pining for a man the world thought lost. Recollects, and almost groans, not fully believing that his friend lived until he had seized him in his arms and pressed him tight to his breast.

(He remembers, also, the sound of James’s quiet sigh at being so embraced. It has never really left him.)

Now, he withdraws as far as he can, but it is still not enough. James dogs him wherever he goes: he manages to coax him out for three more dances and when Francis begs clemency for feet that do not actually ache, remains at Francis’s elbow for the better part of the evening.

Francis wishes for a thick blanket of nighttime to cloak his desires; but at this latitude at this time of year, darkness is a mere figment of the imagination. He stands at the fringes of the party, still as the ice wall at his back. He wishes for its cold, immovable grace, its steadfast certainty. An impossibility, when James is near – Francis has but to look at him and he _burns._

*****

It’s late – or perhaps early – when James finally decides to retire. Francis is only too glad when he is also excused; far less so when James requires an escort back to _Erebus._

Then men send them off with applause, and then with more - Francis isn’t sure who throws the first snowball, but soon he and James are fleeing at a breakneck pace from a hailstorm of tight-packed snow. A well-aimed ball clips James in the ear; without a thought, Francis tugs him under his arm to shield him from the assault.

James is laughing when they finally reach _Erebus_ and he flaps the snow from his gown.

“Come on, then,” he says, as he tugs Francis down the ladder. “A nightcap, before we turn in.”

*****

“It was a good showing, wouldn’t you say?” says James. He is pouring two helpings of whisky. Francis snatches his up and downs it like a man dying of thirst. Seeing this, James pours him another. “A pleasant reminder of home. We have been too long away.”

Francis gives an indeterminate sort of nod. He will not dwell upon what James has left behind, nor upon the sole reason for him to desire a return.

“And a new record, amongst our others – the southernmost ball.”

“I will add it to the log posthaste,” Francis deadpans. He sips his whisky a little more carefully now. His mouth still feels dry.

James laughs and claps Francis on the shoulder. Francis shies away from the touch as if from a brand. James lets his hand slide off with an expression Francis can’t quite read.

“And I daresay that the quadrille will soon be all the rage amongst the penguins,” James adds. “Future voyages will surely take note of the new habits of courting birds.”

Francis puts his tumbler down lest it slide from his grip and shatter.

“A pleasant end to a pleasant evening,” James toasts Francis, then drains his glass and places it on the table next to him. Francis watches as he stretches, seeming to remember how he is attired. He turns, throwing an order over his shoulder: “Help a fellow out of it, won’t you?”

Francis shudders to realize what James is asking for. He ought to refuse, somehow. Call for James’s steward and flee to _Terror_ to the safety of his own bunk. But Francis steps forward all the same, drawing up to James’s proffered back. 

“Shall I-?” He has laid his hand on the laces at James’s slim waist. It would be an easy thing to use his grip to draw James close, to give his lovely, white neck a kiss or a nip, to bury his face in his long, sweet-smelling hair.

“Yes. I got into this all on my own, if you can believe. But getting out of it is another trick,” says James. When Francis hesitates: “Give us a hand, Frank.”

The blood is ringing in his ears. His cock has filled and strains at the seat of his trousers.

“Go on, old man,” says James. “Unless you’re too long out of practice undressing a lady?”

Francis doesn’t laugh. His hands are still poised over the laces. His reticence must be troubling to his friend, for James turns.

“Francis?” Out of the corner of his eye, Francis can see James lips part. He does not dare meet his gaze. “Frank?”

“Your hands,” he says, after a moment. “They’re shaking.”

Francis curls them into fists and hides his sorry state with them. They are still quivering, but at least cover his indignity.

“Are you well?”

Francis cannot speak; should he open his mouth, what would come out?

“Francis. Francis – answer me, are you well?”

Francis shakes his head.

“I shall call for McCormick at once-”

“No.” Francis’s hand shoots out, aims for James’s arm and gets his waist instead. Even through the gown, he can feel the heat of James’s body. He drops it at once, places it back over his trouser front. “No. Don’t. It’s-”

“Tell me, then.” This is a command, and must be obeyed.

“It’s – I’m not ill, James. I’m – sleep is all I require, if you will excuse me-”

“I shall not,” says James, with a fierce set to his brow, “’till you tell me what ails you.”

“James, please-”

“I will order the truth from you, if I must.”

Francis’s words are a wretched plea: “I beg you, do not. I would never lie to you, sir, but I ask you not to make me reveal a truth that would displease us both.”

James’s scowl seems carved into his countenance now - like a deep crevasse in a glacier, as profound and as dangerous. “Francis,” he says, quietly. A shot across the bows, or the thunder’s far-off rumble: a warning. James is unused to disobedience, and will obviously not allow it from Francis. “I will know _this instant._ ”

What can Francis do but obey? He lowers his eyes and places his hands at his sides, revealing the undeniable strain against his inseam. He straightens up like a man at inspection but cannot lift his gaze. A disciplined subordinate ought to square his jaw and look up, but shame has Francis staring resolutely at the deck at his feet.

There is a rustle of fabric, and James’s skirt swishes into view. It brushes against Francis’s boots.

“Francis,” he says. Francis winces at the very sound. “Francis, look at me.”

He needs not repeat it; shame is a paltry master when compared to James Clark Ross. Francis lifts his head, and does.

James is watching him closely. Francis recognizes the expression – but he must quash _that_ hope, must beat it down before it rises, for surely Francis could never deserve _that_ look – its black eyes, its parted lips.

James presses his hand to Francis’s groin. Francis chokes back a moan. “This?” he asks. He rubs his palm against Francis’s cock, stroking him slowly but firmly. “This is what ails you?”

The sound that emerges from Francis’s throat is a gasp. “Yes.”

It is an awkward thing, but James gets his hand down the front of Francis’s trousers and into his linens. At the first brush of his fingertips, Francis’s aching cock twitches and begins to dribble.

“This,” he affirms. “For me?”

Francis gives an almighty shudder. With his thumb, James has found the head of Francis’s cock. He circles its tip, teasing the foreskin back over its head. It is too much, it is wrong, he must stop this-

He seizes James by the back of the neck, seeking to force him away, but James takes his grasp as an invitation instead of a protestation. He puts his left hand on Francis’s face and draws his lips to his. No chaste dalliance, this – James licks at the tight seam of Francis’s lips until Francis gasps and admits him, and then forces himself into Francis’s mouth. Francis sighs and James swallows them all; goes on fondling Francis’s prick until he draws forth moans, and swallows those too.

James’s hair is unspeakably soft in Francis’s grasp. His lips are full and wet, his tongue hot and wicked and tasting of whisky. It would be so easy to submit, to allow this wild moment to bear him away. But this is James, not some middie on _Hamadryad_ or a mate on _Doterel –_ he will not ruin him for some fumbling frig-

“James-” says Francis, pulling himself free.

“Shh,” whispers James. He is stroking Francis’s cheek with his thumb as he presses a kiss to each of his eyelids. “Shh. I am not James tonight – Miss Ross, remember. And I shall be such a good girl for you-”

“No,” says Francis.

James withdraws his hand from Francis’s trousers and takes a half step back. Displeasure is writ large across his face. He does not like to be denied, Francis knows. “But you said-”

“Not – you needn’t pretend, I – Christ, James, I want you as a man, not as-”

James’s hands fall loosely to his sides. He says nothing for a moment and Francis wants to scream. He has betrayed himself with this – worse still, he has betrayed James. It is one thing to have a go at your mate because there isn’t a woman for a thousand miles. Francis assumes this is the shape of James’s desire. But what Francis wants is something else entirely. What will James think of him now, to know what a filthy way his friend wants him?

“I thought so,” James murmurs, at last. “But I could never be sure.”

“Forgive me, if I have offended you. That was never my intent.”

“Offended me?” James’s eyes narrow and he presses again: “Offended me? You do not know me at all if you think – you _dare_ think that anything about you could _ever_ offend me.”

“James,” whispers Francis. His eyes burn and his throat is tight with unshed tears. He has not wept since he was a boy.

“No. _No,_ ” he insists. He takes Francis by the lapels, gives him a little shake. “I’ll not have it, Francis. Not for all love.”

That word is too much for Francis. A sob escapes him, a choked, hideous sound.

“I see I shall have to make it plain,” says James. With a deep sigh, he goes on. “Very well.”

James presses his hand to Francis’s groin once more, and hushes him when Francis keens at it. With his other hand, he conveys Francis’s into his skirts, until Francis grasps a solid, warm prick standing at full attention under a woman’s petticoats.

“This, for me,” he says, giving Francis a squeeze. Then he presses Francis’s hand closer: “That, for you.”

“James, I-” says Francis, but breaks off when James begins to guide Francis’s hand up and down his shaft. His eyes flutter shut and his mouth falls open.

“Yes,” he says, with eyes closed. “Say my name, Francis.”

Francis lifts his empty hand to cup the back of James’s head, leans forward to whisper in his ear. Speaks the name like a prayer: “James.”

Francis almost thinks James has spent for the sudden slickness now dripping over his hand, but James is still hard and groaning. “Kiss me, Francis.”

James’s hair is softer even than Francis imagined. “Are you sure, James?”

James’s eyes open now, his auburn lashes batting. “You are a great many wonderful things, Francis Crozier, but you _are_ a fool,” he returns. “I have wanted you for _years_ and you ask me if I am _sure?”_

“James-”

“I am prepared to swear it, should that satisfy you.”

Francis swallows hard. Shakes his head.

“Well, then. Kiss me, Frank.”

Francis obliges him. He presses his lips first to one corner of James’s mouth, and then the other. Though James’s lips part, his own are closed as he kisses him. When he draws back, James goes with him, sighing as though the absence of Francis’s lips is a pain too great to bear.

(Francis is very happy to ease that pain.)

He bends his head to kiss James once more, using his grip in the other man’s hair to tilt his head to the side for better access. This time, when James sighs, Francis deepens the kiss. With the hand not in James’s hair he has begun to stroke James’s cock more firmly now, setting a regular pace that wrings a delicious moan from the back of James’s throat.

It is that throat that Francis caresses with tongue and lips and teeth when he abandons James’s mouth a moment; dares to nip him, just under the ear, then to set his mouth to sucking a bruise over where his pulse thunders.

At this James starts and cries out. He is still pawing clumsily at Francis’s prick, his movement now near-frantic. Francis hides a smile, then bites down hard over the new bruise.

James’s prick leaps in Francis’s hand, which is sticky with James’s leavings. “Good _Christ,_ Francis-”

“Did you not ask for this?” asks Francis.

“I did, but God - if you make me spend in my petticoats,” warns James, and Francis shocks himself with a burst of laughter at his waspishness, “I will _never_ forgive you.”

“Then what would you have?” Francis would give James anything.

James gestures with his chin at the captain’s berth, not ten steps away. “You, on your back, and that thick cock of yours.” He manages to say it without blushing, as matter-of-factly as he would demand an ice report.

Not so for Francis – he is quite certain he is scarlet. He ducks his head, giving a tight nod. “Would you – would you, er, leave the dress on?”

Francis is rewarded smile from James as he drops into a curtsey. “If it pleases you.”

It does. It _does._ Francis is loose with his praise, knowing it will be welcomed: “You look well in it.”

“I hoped you would think that,” says James. When Francis cocks a brow in query, James gives a little huff that almost manages to sound irritated. “You don’t think I wore this for the men, do you?”

“…for me?”

“Yes, for you, you fool,” says James. “Now into the berth with you, or I shall make you have me over this table.”

Francis hesitates a moment – shame’s lessons are hard-learned, after all – and James plants both hands on his chest and shoves. “I have waited for nearly two decades for this, and have spent the better part of this evening with a stiff cock. I will wait no longer. Into the berth – or do I have to order you there?”

The tone is enough to have Francis scurrying to obey, like a ship’s boy fleeing before his captain’s thunderous rage.

(Oh, Francis feels as giddy as a boy!)

James follows him into the berth, and slides the door shut behind them. Giddiness can carry Francis only so far, however, and the moment Francis begins to undress he is again overcome with discomfort.

James does not allow this. “Off with it all,” he commands, in his quarterdeck tone. “Do not displease me by dallying, Crozier.”

It is easy now – an order to be obeyed. Francis’s reservations are nothing to a command from James. It is easier still when he catches sight of how he is regarded. James is watching him with an open mouth and a leer. One hand is hidden under his skirts, but its movement betrays what he is doing with it. As if his interest were not plain, he also gives Francis’s arse a sharp smack, to drive the point home.

“On your back,” he goes on. Smacks Francis’s arse again, as if for good measure. “No lingering, either.”

This is all Francis needs. He climbs onto the bunk and arranges himself on his back. Dares a glance downward, and blushes to see that his cock is pointing straight up, stiff as a rod.

“No shyness now,” James tells him. He is climbing onto Francis’s lap. “As charming as those maidenly blushes are, I won’t tolerate reluctance. I will train that out of you, in future.”

(There will be more of this? Francis has the errant thought that he must be dreaming.)

As he settles, James’s skirts allow Francis some modicum of modesty, though he can feel his prick pressing eagerly into the soft fabric. But the way in which he is regarded is another matter; James’s gaze roves over his body with a naked desire.

James traces both hands up Francis’s sides, grinning when Francis squirms, suddenly ticklish. He thumbs idly at one nipple and then bends to tongue at the other. He laughs when Francis sighs; hums when he sucks hard and Francis actually groans.

“To think,” he remarks, as he caresses Francis’s neck, and sets his teeth to Francis’s chin, “all this, laid out for my use. I intend to make _good_ use of it.”

Francis is nothing if not James’s. He tells him this. It earns him a kiss, a biting, devouring thing.

James draws back and lifts his skirts, settling them in a pool behind him. From under the ice-blue dress and snow-white petticoats peeks James’s cock. Francis has seen it before, of course – one only berths and bathes and lives with another man so long before seeing his prick – but never in its current state. It is an amiable thing, of good length and pleasant girth. Perhaps the most charming thing in the whole picture is the bed of red curls at the meeting of James’s thighs – redder, even, than the hair on James’s head.

“Like what you see?” says James, maddeningly self-assured.

“Only a fool wouldn’t,” Francis returns. He reaches for James’s cock, contents himself with stroking him back to full hardness.

“Straight to the prize, eh?” James comments, with that cocksure grin. It is only Francis’s respect for his friend’s authority that prevents him from rolling his eyes. “Very well, then. If you’re so eager, I suppose I shall have to oblige.”

James pats Francis’s flank, climbs off him and goes out of the berth. When he returns, he is holding a small tin. He settles once more in Francis’s lap, rucking up his skirts again. He opens the tin and Francis watches him dig out a healthy portion of grease.

He has just palmed Francis’s cock again when Francis reaches for the tin – but James is already reaching behind himself with the other hand. There is a soft sigh, and the unmistakable sound of a finger – or two – entering James.

“You’ve done this before,” says Francis, with no small degree of wonder.

James’s grin is somewhere between wicked and smug. “Jealous, old man?”

Francis seizes him by the hair and kisses him hard. When James has struggled out of his embrace to draw a shaky breath, he goes on. “Wouldn’t you like to know who with?”

“I would not,” says Francis, with the barest thought for whatever undeserving boy or fumbling man had first explored these territories. He is too busy watching James finger himself open.

“I can tell you that not a single one could match you,” says James. His grip tightens on Francis’s prick; Francis grunts like a stuck pig. “Nor this lovely beast.”

“James.” A plea, made with Francis’s cheeks burning with a livid blush.

“This wonderful instrument. Good God, Francis, you ought to know how I seethed with fury to see this for the first time,” he says.

“James.” The same plea again, more desperately made.

“Do you remember it? I do. We were at the basin together. The water was frigid, and we bared ourselves in increments to wash. Imagine my shock at seeing this revealed – who would have thought my new friend to be hiding such a titan in his drawers? Soft and cold but still a prouder thing than most men may boast at the height of their ecstasy-”

“Please-”

James is grinning like a fiend now, pumping at Francis’s cock. “I was envious, of course. I am not ashamed of my own, you know, but it is only natural for a man to be jealous. But I was covetous more of those who had the pleasure of handling this magnificent animal-”

“James, I beg of you,” Francis protests, quite weakly. His prick, drooling happily in James’s hand, makes no complaint. “Please, _sir.”_

Such an address obviously stirs something in James. His eyes flash and he frigs Francis nearly to the point of discomfort. “I will praise you if it pleases _me,_ and it does,” he tells Francis. “Do not presume to think you have say in the matter. Am I understood?”

Francis ducks his head. “Yes, sir.”

“And you want to please me, don’t you?”

“More than anything.”

James smiles, bends forward to give Francis a quick kiss. “Then indulge me, Frank.”

Francis nods.

“Will you also indulge me with this?” asks James. He has risen onto his knees and shuffled forward to line himself up with the head of Francis’s cock. He presses it, there, between his cheeks. Francis cannot see, which is just as well – it takes all his power not spend at the feeling of being pressed up against James’s entrance, which is hot and slick and endlessly welcoming. “Will you let me have this?”

Francis nods again. That is all it takes for James to sink down and let Francis press inside him. The sweet cinch of it is nearly painful and oh, oh – to know that such pleasure is afforded him by _James_ is almost too much to bear.

Francis’s moan escapes him like a bird winging its way out of an opened cage - something long contained and meant to be free. James, for his part, only manages:

“Oh. Oh, Francis. That’s-”

“Good?” asks Francis. He so desperately wants it to be good for James. “Is it?”

James guides Francis’s hand back to his neglected prick, lets him feel it leaking. “Worth the wait.”

The moment he begins to move Francis cries out – too loud, too loud, but he cannot help it – and fists his free hand in James’s skirts. Francis can feel James all over – his own cock, sheathed in James’s warmth; James’s prick, in his hand; his knees, pressed on either side of Francis’s; even the soft skirts seem a part of James as they caress Francis’s thighs. James fills Francis to the very horizon.

(This, of course, feels perfectly correct.)

James’s pace is frantic from the very start. He anchors his hands upon Francis’s breast and settles into a rhythm that knocks the breath from Francis with every thrust. Their bodies meet with an obscene sound, a clap that sounds far too much like applause for Francis’s taste.

Minutes pass, or perhaps hours. An indeterminate time – an eternity in paradise.

“May I,” Francis says, emboldened by the blistering gaze with which he is being regarded, “touch you?”

“Your prick is up my arse, Francis, and mine is in your hand,” says James, and manages to sound perfectly arch and exasperated even though he is out of breath and obviously close to the precipice of his pleasure, “you hardly need ask.”

With a quivering, reverent hand, Francis touches James’s face. It is such a fine face, as flawless as if carved from white marble, but warm under Francis’s palm. No unfeeling stone, this – this is a man.

Francis’s admiration is obviously far loftier than James’s. James, for his part, smirks like a devil when Francis cups his cheek, turning his head to nip Francis’s thumb into his mouth. He sucks at Francis’s digit until Francis moans and pulls it from between his lips.

“James, good _God-_ ”

“None of that modesty, now. You’ll learn to let me do as I please, hm?” James presses down on Francis’s chest until Francis gasps.

“Aye, sir.”

“Next time, you’ll let me use my mouth on you,” says James. His hair is a radiant halo about his lovely face, his brow dewy with perspiration. He is pink to the tips of his ears. “Let me know every part of you with my tongue. Your lips and your prick and even your arsehole – you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Francis’s back arches off the bunk. “Yes, James, yes-”

“And I’ll make you have me again,” he pants. The bunk shrieks under his wildness as he chases his pleasure. “A thousand, a hundred-thousand times over.”

“Yes. Yes-”

“Order you here, whenever I please,” he goes on. Francis cannot tear his gaze away from James’s, fixed to his eyes a polestar to its place. James’s hands are clawed into Francis’s chest. “Any hour of the day or night, and you will have to come and have me.”

(Francis will think, later, that it is James who is doing the having.)

“Whatever you wish-”

“Keep your lovely cock for my personal use, whenever I should have want of it.”

Francis’s own climax is close, a blizzard tearing over the horizon. “However you want. Anything!”

“Use it as long and as hard as _I_ need, ‘till it’s raw and smarting-”

“Yes, yours, _only_ yours, _ever_ yours-” Francis is babbling now, nearly weeping at the sweet relief of the long-awaited vow.

James’s fierce grin is a triumphant, wicked thing that bares his teeth. “Say that again,” he orders.

Francis obeys as he thrusts upward as hard as he can. James hisses at it. “This is yours, all of it.”

“Yes. _You_ are mine,” he snarls. His nails leave wicked scratches, and Francis is glad of them. He will rise in the morning, and see the marks of ownership, and be glad.

“Yes,” Francis returns. “I am yours, all that I am, for you, and you alone.”

“No one else. Promise me. _No one else._ ”

“I swear it. I am yours alone.”

With a victorious shout, James spurts hotly across Francis’s body, painting him from clavicle to navel with his spend. Francis soon follows him over the edge, as James holds him and kisses him hard.

*****

Later, when they are tangled together in the bunk’s enforced closeness, James makes a lover-like vow:

“I hope you realize, Frank, that I won’t allow you out of my sight after this.”

Francis smiles against his hair. “Oh, you won’t?”

“Not for a single second.”

“You will have some difficulty in this,” says Francis. “When we are under sail.”

“I shall insist that you stand at _Terror’s_ bow. I will watch you from _Erebus’s_ quarterdeck and mark you down for duty owing every moment you are not within the sights of my glass.”

“And if you lose sight of _Terror_ in a storm?”

“A storm wouldn’t dare.”

“And if when we return I have an expedition of my own – what will you do then?”

James settles against Francis’s chest, pressing his cheek to where Francis’s heart sings him its raptures. “I will follow you, of course. No man could prevent me.”

Francis kisses his hair before they drift off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Did I try to make this plot-driven? Yes. Was I very proud when it was only 2,000 words of plot and about 500 of smut? You bet! Am I now ashamed that this turned into mostly smut? Yes. But the fic will be what the fic will be. I do not control the smut. My sincerest apologies to the real JCR and FRMC. I'm pretty sure you guys weren't ACTUALLY banging, but more power to you if you were. Ty. Ily.


End file.
